


every little thing she does is magic

by girlwondersteph



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Innuendo, Isabela being Isabela (Dragon Age), Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Teasing, local farmer-apostate casts like a lunatic, local pirate greatly approves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwondersteph/pseuds/girlwondersteph
Summary: “Did you just cast with yourfeet?” Isabela asked incredulously.“Um,” Hawke said, slow and sleepy. “No?”Hawke gives an impromptu magic lesson; Isabela enjoys it more than she thought possible.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Isabela, Hawke/Isabela (Dragon Age)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	every little thing she does is magic

“Hawke,” Isabela said imploringly. “Be a dear and give us some lighting.” 

Hawke, who was sprawled out beside her on the bed, sedate and cocooned, grumbled. Or at least, it _sounded_ like a grumble. It might have been an obscure swear word, though Isabela thought she was familiar with most of those. “Why?”

“It would be romantic,” Isabela said slyly. “And you know how I feel about romance.”  
  
“Opposed?” Hawke asked sardonically, her voice muffled by the pillow. “Magic doesn’t exist for the convenience of lust-addled pirates, you know.” 

“That sounds like _exactly_ what magic exists for,” Isabela said cheerfully. 

Granted no response, she jabbed Hawke lightly in the ribs, half to motivate, and half to illustrate how little room she was actually being given in her own bed. Hawke barely even fit into it, even with her limbs strategically curled; she was monstrously tall. They all were, really - Hawke and Carver and Aveline and Anders. _Fereldans._ There had to be something in the water. Other than the Blight, of course. 

Hawke grunted absently, and then lazily kicked a foot out from beneath the blankets in the general direction of the lantern. It lit immediately, filling the room with a soft amber glow. 

“Did you just cast with your _feet_?” Isabela asked incredulously. 

“Um,” Hawke said, slow and sleepy. “No?”

“You _did_ ,” Isabela said, with growing delight. She propped herself up on her left elbow and used her right to poke at Hawke again. “You’ve been holding out on me. I didn’t know you could channel magic without your hands!” 

“I _can’t_ ,” grumbled Hawke. “Not for anything that requires more than a thimble’s worth of focus, anyway. Sorry for disrupting whatever depraved fantasies you’re having right now.” 

“It’s sweet that you think you’re capable of disrupting my fantasies,” Isabela purred. “So, is that a Ferelden apostate trick, or what? You know I love it when you pull out the Ferelden apostate tricks.” 

Hawke removed her face from the pillow and rolled over, finally cottoning onto the fact that Isabela didn’t intend to let her sleep _just_ yet. She dragged a hand across her eyes, but Isabela spotted a smile starting anyway: Hawke never could help herself. 

“You _do_ tend to develop an interesting style when you grow up as an apostate,” she said grudgingly. “My father had traditional Circle training he tried to pass on, but even he could only do so much. You end up putting odds and ends together, coming to… unconventional conclusions.”

Isabela had noticed as much. She was no expert on magic, but it wasn’t exactly hard to recognize the differences between someone like Anders and Hawke in combat. Even Merrill, to some extent - though Merrill had also grown up outside the Circle, there was a Dalish fluidity to her magic that made it seem as natural and inevitable as the crash of the waves. 

Hawke, on the other hand, cast spells like a back alley brawler; brutally practical, improvisational and jagged. Her magic was like a glass to the neck in a bar fight. Isabela enjoyed it _immeasurably_. 

“ _Unconventional_ is putting it mildly, according to Anders,” Isabela said dryly. “I believe the exact term he used was ‘wonky’. He also complained that watching you cast gives him a headache.” 

“Anders can cure headaches, so I don’t see the problem,” Hawke said. “I’m appalled by the blatant elitism, though. You can take a mage out of the Circle…” 

Isabela laughed. “ _Don’t_ say that in front of him. He takes great pride in his moody rebel apostate identity, you know. Calling that into question would be cruel. We should do it more often, actually.”

“Play nice, if you’re capable,” Hawke said, and Isabela rolled her eyes. Hawke’s odd possessiveness over teasing Anders was one of the few things about her that _wasn’t_ particularly fun. Hm. Anders and possessiveness. There was a pun with great promise. 

“I’ve always wondered, actually - why is it you mages sling around big sticks, if you don’t actually need them?” Isabela asked, fishing for a line of conversation she could reliably turn into innuendo. Hawke was properly awake now, and she needed _some_ method of getting her going again. “Is it just to compensate?” 

“That, and to whack at anything that gets too close,” Hawke snorted. “No, actually, it’s more to do with needing an aid to direct magic properly. Circle-trained mages are typically more reliant on them than barbaric apostates with _wonky styles_ like me, but even I usually still need - ugh, never mind. I don’t know how to properly explain it to someone who doesn’t work with magic.” 

Isabela forgot about innuendo in her irritation. “Try. Don’t make me regret all those dagger throwing lessons I know you cheated at.” 

Hawke turned over to search Isabela’s face. “Bells, with you, cheating is _part_ of the lesson.” 

Isabela had to concede the point for a variety of reasons, not the least how distracted she was by the mark she’d left blooming at the corner of Hawke’s mouth. It could use a _friend_ , she mused. 

“But - all right, think of it this way,” Hawke said, and Isabela sat up straight at the unexpected intentness to her voice. “Magic is like _energy_ , and it’s everywhere, for those of us who can touch it. Accessing that energy is one thing; like breathing, for a mage. But delivering it, packaging it - molding it into what you want, and making it go where it needs to go? That’s the tough part.” 

Isabela was intrigued; magical theory itself didn’t interest her, but anything Hawke said in that tone _did_. 

“Not to mention you have to factor in your reserves. Anyway, you can send magic wherever you want, but you use up power to _get_ it there - and it’s so easy to almost… _lose_ fragments of it along the way.”

“This sort of gets me going, just so you know,” Isabela said. 

Hawke looked briefly exasperated, as though she genuinely wanted Isabela to learn something, which was just _adorable_. “Right, well, I’ll add it to the list.”

“How did you end up such a tutor, Hawke?” Isabela murmured, her fingers creeping up Hawke’s arm. “You’re such a _scrapper_ in a fight. I never knew you could be so... academic.” 

Hawke stilled at that, and gently but firmly moved Isabela’s fingers from where they rested at the crease of her elbow.

“Bethany was still young when our father died,” Hawke said. “I suppose I could have tried posting on the Chanter’s Board: local family seeking teacher for moody adolescent apostate. But I had the feeling that wouldn’t work out too well, so I had to pick up the end of her training.” 

Isabela _knew_ Hawke, what this sudden detachment meant and where this was inevitably heading, and felt the sudden desire to draw her away from the subject of her dead sister, and any blame she might assign herself for failing to teach her properly. Hawke already had enough on her shoulders; she didn’t need the past there as well.

“Keep teaching, sweet thing,” Isabela said. “You know how much I enjoy listening to you talk. Among other things, of course.”

Hawke gave her a look that was almost relieved, before she smirked - rather dangerously, Isabela thought, with both appreciation and trepidation. “Trust me, you’re going to regret saying that in fifteen minutes.” 

It took twenty. Twenty minutes of increasingly complicated explanations about distance and energy preservation and conductors and all other sorts of magey nonsense - in addition to a brief demonstration in the form of a small fireball, which broke up the lecture nicely at the midway point. Hawke had a decent grasp on how to recapture a student’s wandering attention, at least.

“Is it a problem that I’m only following about a quarter of this?” Isabela asked idly. She examined the very interestingly-shaped scorch mark Hawke had left on the ceiling, and wondered if she had plausible deniability. 

“Only if I decide to test you later.” 

“I didn’t realize this was such serious business,” Isabela said mischievously. “Tell me, Hawke. What kind of punishment am I in for if I get a failing grade?” 

“I think you can call me Marianthi at this point,” Hawke said, lightly. 

Isabela ignored that. “I’m still on _punishment_.”

Hawke sighed, and then her lips twitched back into a smile. “It’s tempting to get into, I admit, but it’s unnecessary. You’d pass any test I gave you.” 

Isabela scoffed at the unlikeliness of it all. “Says who?” 

“Says me.” Hawke tapped the side of her nose knowingly. “I’m onto you - every time you understood a concept, you derailed with a dirty joke to make it seem like you didn’t. Take it from the master of deflection; I know it when I see it. You’re trying to hide your smarts, Bells. What, do you think you’d intimidate me by being smart _and_ beautiful?”

There was suddenly a lump in Isabela’s throat. She cleared it, unnerved. “The flattery’s not needed. We’re _already_ in bed.” 

“Maybe in another world you’d actually be a scholar,” mused Hawke. “Nose in a book.”

Isabela scrambled up. “Hey. You take that back!” 

Hawke, already laughing, flipped herself over and as far away from Isabela as possible without pitching herself onto the floor. 

Her positioning, though awkward, wasn’t half bad. Hawke was _also_ brighter than she liked to let on, so Isabela imagined she’d already figured out the exact locations of all the knives hidden in the bed. “I’m serious, Hawke, I’ve never been so offended in my life.” 

“Another lie,” Hawke said smugly. “ _Nothing_ offends you. I’ve hung around you for three years and not managed it, and Aveline claims my sense of humor is so offensive it sometimes crosses the border into derangement.” 

“Oh, what doesn’t Aveline find offensive?” Isabela snorted, but she settled back down into the pillows. 

Hawke hovered for a moment, clearly wondering whether Isabela was feigning passivity to bait her, and then she shrugged and scooted back - closer this time, driven by her insatiable need to cuddle. 

Isabela wrinkled her nose. _Fire magic._ “You smell like burnt toast.”

“It gives me character,” Hawke said, and snuggled closer. 

“Maybe we should take a bath,” Isabela suggested brightly. 

“Maybe we should go to sleep,” Hawke said firmly. She paused for a moment, and then begrudgingly added: “And a bath after.” 

Isabela thought about pulling away. Flirting, sex, banter - those were the usual territory. Cuddling was a different matter altogether, and Hawke was entirely too attached to it.

But then Hawke pulled her in, and Isabela was really very warm and comfortable, and it wasn’t like this _meant_ anything - they just weren’t _like_ that, either of them. Hawke had told her once, seven drinks in, that she thought she made a far better friend than lover. 

“Being a friend is one of the few things I’m half-decent at, Bells,” she’d slurred. “Anything else I’m bound to mess up.” 

So Isabela didn’t move. Hawke nuzzled into her neck, and Isabela watched her own fingers thread through her friend’s short black hair, almost of their own accord.


End file.
